THE THEBAN SAGA 393
Oedipus Rex by Max Ernst (1891-1976); oil on canvas, 1922, 37 X 41 in. In this surrealist
painting, Freudian imagery is combined with elements in the myth of Oedipus. A hand
stretches out from the house (or palace?), with a handsaw that splits a womblike walnut
shell, itself pierced by an arrow. To the right a bird's head with tethered horns projects
from a hole in a plank, while a balloon rises into the sky. The painting clearly alludes to
Oedipal themes, including father-son rivalry, the mother's womb, piercing, freedom and
confinement, flight from home, and being drawn inexorably back. (Private collection.)
says Jocasta (Oedipus Tyrannus 981), "have in dreams lain with their mothers,"
and we have already noted how Greek myths of creation are permeated with
the concepts of the mother-son relationship and of conflict between father and
son. Sophocles and his predecessors were concerned with the historical, theo-
logical and other aspects of the myth, and we should be skeptical of attempts to